NFL

Will the Greatest player of all-time convince you it’s a bad product or is it all just a religion for y’all at this point?

"I think the coaching isn't as good as it was..I don't think the development of young players is as good as it was. I don't think the schemes are as good as they were.” Tom Brady

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38951659/tom-brady-bemoans-nfl-play-says-there-lot-mediocrity

...until it wasn't.

Imagine a Browns team with a healthy offensive line (missing 3 starters: Conklin, Wills, Forbes), a healthy Nick Chubb, a healthy former top 5 young QB prospect, a serviceable backup qb (Brissett, Doubs), and a tight end who can catch the ball. I get it... all teams have injuries... and miss signings...

Blew the game against the Steelers after Chubb went down with the Watson fumble TD with 7 mins to go, lost by 4.

Blew the game against the Seahawks with a 3rd string qb due to a pick at midfield with 2 minutes left, up 3, give up a TD in 1 minute.

Blew the Ravens game by starting DTR against a good D his first game on short notice (would've happened either way).

...and the Browns are still 7-3. Easily could be 9-1 without the collapses and healthy. We could seriously be considering Browns vs. Chiefs in the AFC Championship and Browns vs Lions in the Superbowl (not a serious ambition anymore).

But the Browns is the Browns.

With the season presumably lost with the Brown's losses and the remnants vying to keep the dream alive, we can imagine what a Browns run to the Superbowl would have looked like; having Jim Schwartz come in first year leading the best Defense in the league with Myles and Ward causing havoc, best complimentary offense with the best running back Chubby and Watson coming into his own in the 2nd half of the season, and a fucking really big dick kicker (our only hope). Now we can never do more than imagine a glorious 2nd round exit.

It was the Brown's year... until it wasn't. Until next year!

-Browns fans

Hypothetical stats:

• His current completion percentage is 67.1%. If every dropped ball had been caught, his completion percentage would be 74% which would be 4% better than any other starting QB (Brock Purdy at 70%) in the league.

• If the Chiefs had the average amount of dropped balls (11) instead of the most (26), Mahomes completion percentage would be 71% for best in the league.

Just a hypothetical obviously, but after his Stephen A segment talking about the mediocre play happening right now in the league (which, I mean, he isn't wrong) do you think Tom Brady as a former player would make a good NFL Commissioner?

With Tom Brady clutching at ownership, and with his "GOAT" mentality, would he serve as a benefit to the game if he focused on a higher position within the NFL management Assuming he would even be interested in that to begin with.

What do you guys think?

Discuss

ptdotme's NFL Elo Power Rankings After Week 11

(By popular demand, see the rankings without the influence of last year's season-ending ratings in my comment below, or here.)

For this week, the model has been tweaked to slightly increase the value of wins and slightly decrease the importance of margin of victory. As always, this change was only implemented because it increased the accuracy of the model. Again, this was only a slight change so you won't see a big change in the power rankings -- teams went up or down a few Elo rating points and a few pairs of similarly-rated teams swapped rankings.

This is OC. I’ve written code to calculate NFL team Elo ratings^1 on a week to week basis. The goal is to use simple Elo ratings to create power rankings without the influence of human bias and emotion. The ratings are based on each team's rating from the previous week, with a "parity reset" applied every offseason. The model has been tested for accuracy against game outcomes since week 1 of the 2012^2 season. The ratings are derived only from each game's score, venue, and date. There are a number of variables/weights in my secret sauce but otherwise they're fairly conservative, basic, Elo ratings.

This is all a work in progress and feedback is appreciated! See more stats and info on my 2023 NFL Elo Power Rankings page.

Note: You may feel teams are ranked too high or low based on recent games, and you may be right. However, the model has been tested and is more accurate when it doesn't overreact to individual games. The goal is model accuracy, not rankings that "look right." ^(2)  

The top 4 teams won handily. The Ravens' Elo rating got a boost from a big win after Burrow went down, and the Bengals have nearly fallen out of the top 10. The Eagles were slight Elo underdogs at the Chiefs, and picked up a couple Elo points from their win last night. The Browns beat a weaker Steelers team by a smaller than expected margin, and thus lost an Elo rating point and didn't return to the top 10. The Jaguars had a nice win and skipped over a few closely bunched teams to get back into the top 10.

The Buccs, Steelers, Broncos, and Texans are all rated nearly the same, so their ordering from 17th-20th isn't meaningful.

The Broncos are on a league-leading 4-game, +33 Elo hot streak (the Raiders, Bears, and Steelers are on 3-game Elo hot streaks). The Jets are on a 4-game -29 Elo cold streak (the Titans, Panthers, Seahawks, and Patriots are on 3-game cold streak).

^(1)See Wikipedia. Elo ratings are numeric and assigned to each contestant. The ratings are used to estimate performance. After each game, the difference between a contestant's estimated and actual performance is used to update their rating. For the NFL, this can all be summarized as "Who did you beat/lose to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to and by how much? And who have they beaten/lost to ...

^(2)Moving backward through the years, each preceding season has a much smaller impact on the current ratings. Team ratings from 2010 have zero impact on today's ratings. Ratings from only a couple years ago, say 2021, have almost no effect on today's ratings. Seasons going back to 2010 are only used by the model to ensure its accuracy over thousands of NFL games.  

All they talk about is odds and parlays.

With rules favouring the offenses so heavily in the NFL, I believe that the intentional grounding penalty should come with an additional loss of down.

Meaning say it’s 3rd and 10, QB doesn’t get out of pocket, ball doesn’t get to line of drum mags, no receiver etc etc and he throws it away, i think it should be a dead spot foul, but the ball is now turned over to the opposing team. The 4th down should be nullified.

I think the defense should be rewarded for great coverage with additional pressure.

Arrowhead Stadium — home of the Kansas City Chiefs — had the highest percentage of players (17.9 percent) vote it as the best NFL stadium among the 84 players who responded to the question. The Minnesota Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium (13.7 percent), the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers’ SoFi Stadium (8.9 percent), the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field and the Seattle Seahawks’ Lumen Field (both 8.3 percent) followed in the rankings for best stadium.

Players also sounded off on the league’s worst venues to play in, with the New York Jets and Giants’ MetLife Stadium outranking the others (18.4 percent) in that category. The Washington Commanders’ FedEx Field (13.9 percent) and Buffalo Bills’ Highmark Stadium (12.7 percent) were the other top vote-getters for the worst stadium to play in.

| | Team | SI | SN | Y! | B/R | CBS | USA | NFL | ESPN | Avg | SD | CGPR | |

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| | 1 | Philadelphia (0) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 1 | | 2 | San Francisco (2) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3.1 | 1.4 | 8 | | 3 | Kansas City (-1) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 6 | | 4 | Detroit (-1) | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 3.5 | 1.2 | 4 | | 5 | Baltimore (0) | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 5.0 | 1.9 | 2 | | 6 | Dallas (1) | 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 6.0 | 1.5 | 3 | | 7 | Miami (-1) | 8 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6.6 | 0.7 | 9 | | 8 | Cleveland (0) | 5 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 8.4 | 1.7 | 5 | | 9 | Jacksonville (0) | 9 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 8.5 | 0.8 | 7 | | 10 | Houston (2) | 12 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 10.5 | 1.3 | 10 | | 11 | Buffalo (4) | 10 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 10.6 | 1.5 | 12 | | 12 | Seattle (-1) | 14 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 14 | 12 | 11 | 12.3 | 1.2 | 14 | | 13 | Pittsburgh (0) | 11 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 13.0 | 1.6 | 13 | | 14 | Minnesota (0) | 15 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 13 | 18 | 14 | 13 | 14.4 | 1.6 | 11 | | 15 | Denver (6) | 18 | 16 | 13 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 17 | 17 | 16.1 | 1.6 | 15 | | 16 | Cincinnati (-6) | 16 | 15 | 18 | 15 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 14 | 17.5 | 3.8 | 16 | | 17 | New Orleans (0) | 22 | 17 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 22 | 15 | 16 | 17.6 | 2.8 | 19 | | 18 | Indianapolis (0) | 23 | 18 | 17 | 19 | 15 | 16 | 16 | 18 | 17.8 | 2.5 | 18 | | 19 | LA Chargers (-3) | 13 | 21 | 21 | 18 | 26 | 17 | 19 | 21 | 19.5 | 3.8 | 17 | | 20 | Las Vegas (-1) | 19 | 19 | 20 | 23 | 19 | 19 | 21 | 20 | 20.0 | 1.4 | 22 | | 21 | Tampa Bay (-1) | 20 | 20 | 22 | 22 | 23 | 21 | 20 | 22 | 21.3 | 1.2 | 23 | | 22 | LA Rams (4) | 24 | 22 | 25 | 24 | 20 | 13 | 24 | 19 | 21.4 | 4.0 | 21 | | 23 | Atlanta (1) | 21 | 23 | 24 | 21 | 24 | 24 | 23 | 25 | 23.1 | 1.5 | 25 | | 24 | Green Bay (3) | 17 | 25 | 23 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 22 | 24 | 23.3 | 2.8 | 20 | | 25 | NY Jets (-3) | 25 | 24 | 19 | 20 | 22 | 27 | 25 | 26 | 23.5 | 2.9 | 24 | | 26 | Washington (-3) | 27 | 26 | 27 | 26 | 21 | 31 | 26 | 23 | 25.9 | 2.9 | 28 | | 27 | Tennessee (-2) | 26 | 29 | 28 | 29 | 27 | 23 | 27 | 27 | 27.0 | 1.9 | 27 | | 28 | Chicago (1) | 31 | 28 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28.0 | 1.4 | 26 | | 29 | Arizona (-1) | 28 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 29 | 20 | 30 | 31 | 28.1 | 3.4 | 31 | | 30 | NY Giants (1) | 29 | 27 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 29.3 | 1.0 | 29 | | 31 | New England (-1) | 30 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 29 | 31 | 30 | 30.5 | 0.8 | 30 | | 32 | Carolina (0) | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32.0 | 0.0 | 32 |

[SN] ( https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-power-rankings-49ers-cowboys-broncos-seahawks-steelers/da4d18d1d1d67b3800f4f86e )

Y!

B/R

CBS

USA

NFL

ESPN

[SI] ( https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/11/21/power-rankings-eagles-on-top-after-beating-chiefs )

[CGPR] ( https://old.reddit.com/user/velociraptorfarmer/comments/1809e5x/2023_week_11_nfl_power_rankings/ )

No, that's not a typo, they really have the exact same number of yards

The Commodore64 is taking the week off so I had the Tandy1000 do the intel gathering and it spit out the following tidbits that may be of interest...

NFC

• Scenarios in which 6 wins somehow made the playoffs were found for ATL, CAR, TBB, CHI, GBP, MIN, NYG, WAS, LAR, and ARI. Now I personally wouldn't as a head coach aim for that mark and call it good, but it is mathematically possible. T1000 said NOS and SEA had to hit 7W at a minimum. Usual caveat there could be some lottery ticket that eluded it in its scenario searching.
• DET, PHI, DAL, SFF could in theory be coached by Arthur Smith (i.e. not win any games) for the rest of the season and still make it in.
• T1000 said if ATL and TBB hit 11 wins they would be assured of a playoff spot. I believe if either hit 11 wins (i.e. win out) they would by default be the NFC South champion). It said NOS, DET, MIN, DAL, PHI, SFF, SEA would need 12 wins to avoid any wackadoodle scenario that leaves them out.
• CAR, CHI, GBP, NYG, WAS, LAR, and ARI do not control their own destiny.
• Projected number of wins most likely to be good for a wildcard spot is hovering between 9 and 10, with 9 having decent odds of at least a tiebreaker situation.
• Projected number of wins likely to be needed to win each division (i.e. 2nd place + 1W): East 11, North 10-11, South 9, West 10. The East number seems low to me but I ain't going to risk the T1000 going on strike over an argument.
• Computer didn't see any division or playoff clinching scenarios for week 12 nor any that would eliminate a team from playoff contention. The Panthers live to fight another week. I think the Eagles could possibly clinch a playoff spot by next week.
• In my subjective world of what is realistic, I have PHI and DET as IN for they could drunken stumble to 10 wins which "should" be safe and CAR, ARI, NYG, CHI, WAS as OUT as it would be either impossible or unlikely given their current state of football playing ability for them to hit 9 wins which is probably what would be needed to have much real-world chances.

AFC

• Scenarios in which 7 wins could make it into the playoffs were found for CIN, BUF, NEP, NYJ, LVR, LAC, TEN, and IND. Indications are that CLE, PIT, MIA, DEN, KCC, and HOU would need to hit 8 wins for any chance. BAL and JAC are at their minimums already.
• 12 wins was spit out as the number that assures a playoff spot for BAL, CIN, CLE, BUF, MIA, DEN, KCC, IND, JAC, and HOU. T1000 said PIT needed 13, same caveat it might have missed something for PIT and 12.
• NEP, NYJ, LVR, LAC, and TEN do not control their own destiny.
• Projected number of wins most likely to be good for a wildcard spot is sitting at 10.
• Projected number of wins likely to be needed to win each division (i.e. 2nd place + 1W): East 10, North 11-12, South 10-11, West 10-11.
• There do not appear to be any division or playoff clinching scenarios for week 12 nor any that would eliminate a team from contention.
• In my subjective world of what is realistic, I don't have any teams that I would put money down as being IN that could limp without an offensive line to 11 wins and be safe, but I have four that are realistically OUT as getting to 10 wins would either be impossible or quite the feat, NEP, TEN, LAC, and NYJ.

You can't blame everything on dropped balls and lackadaisical wide receivers. Is it the offensive scheme and losing Bienemy as OC? Mahomes' numbers are way down too this season, it's like they don't push the ball downfield like they used to do, the game against the Eagles is a microcosm of their entire season, they come out looking like the Chiefs of old and then just lose focus or playcalling becomes extremely conservative?

Not even in the pre-Super Bowl era did the Steelers axe a coach midseason

However bad you thought Canada was, he was worse

Tuesday, November 14 - Monday, November 20

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